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US-based team of scientists has built a robot that folds itself into an origami-inspired shape starting from a flat sheet. The assemblage of such robot doesn’t require any human intervention. It is made from a polymer material which shrinks when heated, also has electronics and motors attached to it. When the heating elements affect the hinges made in paper, the robot starts transforming into a crab-like machine. The whole process takes about 4 minutes before the robot can start walking.

The team behind the project said their inspiration came from the complex 3-D shapes in origami: like in the Japanese paper art, various three-dimensional shapes are constructed from a single sheet of paper. This robot takes origami a step further. According to the developer team, such self-assembling robots can be greatly employed in construction or rescue works.

“[They could be delivered] through a confined passageway, such as a collapsed building, after which they would assemble into their final form autonomously,” states Marc Lavine, senior editor at Science.

Robot‘s small size makes is what makes it very useful because of the easy transportation and storage. Apart from search-and-rescue missions, a more advanced version of the robot could be easily used construction works, especially in places that are hard to reach. The whole project is said to cost $11,000 but with the initial designs in place, the mass-production robots should cost around $100 each. (via NPR)

35-year old artist Marcelo Daldoce is literally bringing a new dimension to art with his folded portraits of women. A native of Brazil now living in New York, Daldoce is a self-taught artist who began painting at 16. Daldoce’s previous work included large scale nudes incorporated with sophisticated typography, as well as portraits using wine as a medium. His early employment as an illustrator in an advertising agency left him with a distaste for the conventional and a need to make work that is expressive and innovative.

In his current work, geometric patterns conceal and reveal the women beneath, contorting their bodies into impossible shapes. He says:

“In bringing to life a flat surface, I strive to create a puzzle between what is real and what is illusion, what is painted and what is manipulated, turning paint to flesh, paper to sculpture.”

Daldoce’s primary medium is watercolor, which he has modernized through his technique and style. Color, pattern, image. It’s almost too much to process, which is where the origami-like folds come into play. The shadows cast obscure parts of the artwork, giving the eye a place to rest. “It’s mathematic, a process of folding, folding, folding,” he says. “Folding is actually the biggest job now because it takes more time. It’s more complex than just paint.”

In the portraits, the sharp edged paper is paradoxical to the soft curves and valleys of the women’s bodies, and this contrast is carried through the diverse elements of his work: hidden/exposed, abstract/figurative, flat/peaked, colorful/neutral, traditional/contemporary. The paintings leap off the wall dimensionally, but the bold display doesn’t overshadow the beauty of Daldoce’s captured women. (via Hi-Fructose)

Origami is both impressive in its folded construction as well as its ability to signify the need for change by urging us to look beyond the paper forms. Animals are no doubt the most popular subject, and Japanese artist Takayuki Hori has a twist on the conventional foldings. He crafts these animals to appear as victims of Japan’s urban pollution, and the pieces expose the sad truths of what happens to these creatures. Hori showcases garbage in their insides using X-ray-like detail. If you look closely, you can see tiny bottles and other trash within the stomachs and ribcages.

These works appear in Hori’s exhibition Oritsunagumono (which means “things folded and connected”) which critiques the polluted coastal waterways and the effects they have on its inhabitants. Images are printed onto translucent sheets of paper and later folded into their origami shapes. The result are a ghostly tribute and haunting reminder of our impact on the environment. (Via Fast Co. Design)

Swiss Origami artist Sipho Mabona creates a full-scale white elephant by using a single sheet of paper. By using one slice of white paper measuring 15 by 15 meters (50 by 50 feet), the skilled artist was able to craft up this grand ‘white elephant’, which stands more than 3 meters (10 feet) tall.

The project, apart from being living-proof of outstanding talent, was also treated as a performance; this live video [posted here] shows Mabona doing what he does best. As we intently watch it, we see a slow progression, a focused Mabona, and a paper-elephant slowly taking shape. “There is no limit in origami”, says Mabona.

Mabona financed the project through Indiegogo, the Internet-crowdfunding platform. He raised over $26,000 from 631 funders. In order to share with the donors, a webcam was installed where Mabona worked. The artist ran into some major challenges like figuring out how to spread a huge sheet of paper, measuring 15 meters by 15 meters (or 50 by 50 feet), in a hall, to transform the sheet of paper into the body of an elephant. There were moments during the folding process wherehe had to get the help of up to ten people to lift and fold the paper. (via My Modern Met)

Joel Cooper crafts paper masks and geometric shapes using the technique of origami. Cooper’s intricate three dimensional masks are created with a large number of folds out of one sheet of paper. He alternates between bright and muted colors and matte and shiny sheets of paper that all appear earthy in tone. On some of his pieces, his wife has collaborated with him by using painting techniques to enrich color and texture. You can check out more of Cooper’s work on Flickr and purchase available designs via his Etsy shop. He lives in Kansas. (via design taxi)

The work of Paris based artist Mademoiselle Maurice is a peculiar type of street art. These new pieces especially emphasize these pleasant peculiarities. She typically forgoes paint in favor of mediums uncommon on the street such as lace or paper. This newest artwork required over 30,000 folded pieces – a sort of mass origami street art. Mademoiselle Maurice was able to complete the projects with the help of hundreds of volunteers, many of them local school children. She thus covered the steps and entrance of the Montée St-Maurice as well as hand a nearby mural. [via]

Vietnamese paper artist Nguyễn Hùng Cường creates origami pieces in a style that is distinctively his own. His pieces often begin with dó paper – a unique paper, made from the bark of the rhamnoneuron balansae, that is traditionally made throughout many of Vietnam’s villages. Typically striving to create his work from only one sheet of paper, he has been known to often fold work from a single bill of Vietnamese money. Nguyễn has been working in origami since he was just a small child creating his first original piece at ten years old. [via]

Photographer Alma Haser has often incorporated origami into her work. However, in her series Cosmic Surgery the origami is brought to the forefront. For the Cosmic Surgery Haser photographs a series of portraits. She next makes multiple prints of the portraits and folds them into complex origami objects. The origami pieces are placed back into the portrait and a photograph is taken of the final composition. Haser mixes the meditative nature of origami and transposes it onto the face of her subject, somehow injecting simple portraits with an esoteric atmosphere.